| Show cwm NEW YORK TO PANAMA aft march 3 1898 1 I write this r an the eastern shore of t the h e U A of panama Pat iama I 1 am in the litton house the special quarters e officials of the panama railroad tant t of me is the green hose waves coming in on the g tide are dashing up a silvery tk almost at my feet A long row ut palms runs between me faut e beach and each of these is with arbth great bunches of green nuts ts every one of which is ii as big t head of that half naked jamaica baby who is playing there on the of the be water the air from the is gnat of a hot july at home but sea breeze Is soft cool and d dt when I 1 left new york a week at it was in the snow of midwinter 9 t I 1 aro am in the heat of midsummer lag apy surroundings are those of as s next year I 1 shall be traveling the tropics during that time make a trip of for bei per letters covering much of t continent of south america X buding some of the hottest as me of the coldest regions of le among the shows of the hall ahall be nearer heaven than at fet ardt at any place on this parth earth 4 except in some parts of the Him himalaya aliya mountains and in the cold winter of tierra del fuego at the lower end of our hemisphere I 1 shall be at the southernmost point of the habitable globe As to the red hot tropics it is warm enough here but a few weeks from now I 1 shall be straddling the equator in ecuador and within nine months I 1 it if I 1 succeed in eluding the yellow fever I 1 I 1 shall sail right along the line of the equator into the heart of south america on the amazon river my trip began ten days ago when I 1 left new york on tb the steamer advance of the panama railroad steamship line for a 2000 mile sail to colon this afternoon I 1 shall cross the isthmus 0 of f panama and thence later on take ships from port to port down the west coast of south america to the straits of magellan I 1 shall make a number of expeditions into the interior describe I 1 ing the countries of colombia ecuador I 1 I 1 peru bolivia and chile spending some time in the andes and traveling quite extensively on the plateau of bolivia on lake Titi caca I 1 shall abam steam about I 1 above the clouds at an altitude more than two miles above the cities of new york and washington on the highest big fresh water lake of the world and in the rainless zone along the coast of chile I 1 shall be traveling through a desert quite as wonderful at as that of sahara after a trip over the transi andean road which is now being built I 1 to connect the atlantic and pacific describing the work that to is now going on in the andes and after having I 1 i traveled extensively in chile I 1 shall make my way up the atlantic coast of south america with numerous expeditions ions into the interior in the argentine I 1 shall visit the great grain and stock raising plantations shall travel over the pampas where e the I 1 I 1 ostriches run wild and from buenos ayres shall sail up the rio de la plata I 1 parana and paraguay rivers for more than a thousand miles stopping some time at Asun asuncion con the paraguayan capital uruguay will be my next country to describe and after that I 1 shall visit the cities of brazil and make several long expeditions into the interior visiting some of the biggest coffee plantations of the world and traveling 2000 miles or more on the amazon through some of the least known regions of the earth after leaving the amazon my itinerary is not fixed but I 1 shall probably sail from the mouth of this great river for new york stopping perhaps at some of the west indian islands on the way the preliminary preparations tor for newspaper trip of this kind are important and it mar may interest you to know something eom ething of my outfit you cannot take a tour of this kind as one of cooks tourists does that to europe putting all your necessaries in a valise you must have different kinds of clothing for different climates you cannot buy the books and photographic materials you want on the road and everything must be carefully packed to withstand the kicking of the obstreperous pack mule and the miasmatic dampness of the tropics I 1 have five pieces of baggage and as I 1 already know by the excess baggage charges they weigh just pounds only are allowed free from new york to colon the excess being charged for at 2 cents a pound and in crossing the isthmus on a local ticket only 15 pounds of baggage goes free and all ail above that pays 3 cents in silver a pound my photographic outfit to is comparatively light I 1 have two cameras a and a each fitted out with good lenses and shutters I 1 have a few glass plates but chiefly cut and roll film this has been especially prepared for the tropics being sealed up in tins to keep out the dampness then I 1 carry the small typewriter on which I 1 am now clackin clicking out this letter and a lot of reference referee ce books which are as heavy as so mu much ch lead ead I 1 have of course plenty of letters of introduction from washington nc luding a special one from the secretary of state asking our consuls and diplomats to render me every assistance in my travels my money I 1 take in the shape of a letter of credit on london for english gold is best south of the equator as it will bring more silver in exchange my signature identifies me and all I 1 I 1 have lave to do is to present it at any bank in n south america and sign a check and the he money will be paid me here on the isthmus and in central america our gold is even better than english gold and I 1 have ten 20 gold pieces which will I 1 hope see me through panama the expenses of such a trip are heavy in planning a new expedition for newspaper letters I 1 debated some time whether south america or africa would be the more interesting field and I 1 got steamship rates for both continents I 1 could have gone to the cape of good hope for less than to jo the straits of magellan the time Is is just about the same but the fare from crom new york to valparaiso in chile is and you are still about 56 55 above the straits the fare to cape town to la only all of the steamer fares farea here are payable paya me in gold and on the isthmus though silver is used it seems to me that prices are increased accordingly I 1 paid 6 5 this morning for an umbrella which I 1 could have bave gotten for a dollar and a half anywhere at home and the boy who wheeled my baggage from the boat to the station charged me 2 these sums were in silver and though I 1 have just gotten 1170 for a 6 5 gold piece I 1 find the extra money does not go far after all I 1 was told at the philadelphia museum that the expenses of traveling in south america would be about 16 15 a day this seems to me very aich my trip of a year in going round the world cost me just about 10 a day and in my lher ather journeys I 1 have found that 10 a day to is just about what it costs coats to travel in other parts of the world I 1 will give from time to time the expenses of various tours down here and will des describe oribe just how the traveling is done the trip from new york to colon takes just seven days there ix are three steamers every month and the fare is 1 from 76 75 to 80 according to the thelora I 1 loca tion of your cabin the Ad advance vatice on which I 1 came is a steady little vessel of 2700 tons or about one ene fifth the size of the largest atlantic liners its best beat rooms were on the promenade deck and in the corner cabin which I 1 had there were two windows In dows each about two feet square which gave me a delicious breeze day and night the line to Is now operated tn in connect connection lop with and la in i owned by the panama railroad company it was until within a short time a part of the pacific mail which ran from new york and after cros crossing ding the isthmus took its passengers up to san I 1 francisco now the pacific mail company has only the ships on the pacific 1 side and the panama railway and steamship company have the only regular line from the united states to the isthmus their steamers fly the amer lean flag and all of the officers anc and are americans our ship was wa commanded by a maine man captain Suke worth who has recently been trip in charge of some of the red ID D litle line steamers from new york to venezuela and our chief mate was also front fron balne we had forty cabin passengers the most of whom americana and imalee the remainder a mixture of germans german bound for their coffee plantations in fit guatemala and some central and south americans who were evere going home in this way from europe or the united states one of the Gert germans nans was a lady who had a pair of baby twins with her she had gone from her home in hi central america in order that the children might be born tn in the land of the kalser kaiser and now having accomplished her mission was returning home to her husband among the americans were a brooklyn boy who is going down to be a station agent at on the panama railroad a mr W H nash of chicago and a mr T J kennedy of florence new york who axe are bound for la paz bolivia where they will open some big gold mines which kennedy who is a mining engineer has discovered and a large party of both sexes who axe are going in this way to san francisco we had an old sea captain named humphreys from hing ham where secretary of the navy long lives in the frisco party and also an american traveling salesman or two for south america last but by no means means least were bishop warren of the methodist church who is way to chile to examine into the state of the missions there and mr murphy of the state department who is here in colon to take the place of the consul who was drowned within a few miles of where I 1 am now writing while out on a pleasure sail a few weeks ago the bishop had his family with him and was also accompanied by some chilean Chilek Ln lady missionaries who axe are returning from their vacations to their fields or work the party altogether was a pleasant one the bishop was a mine of story and information for he has traveled all over the globe As we left new york and sailed southward and passed cape hatteras he pointed out the fact that we were in the warm waters of the gulf stream that wonderful river of the ocean which has a volume times as aa great as the mississippi and which flowing across through the north atlantic to the north sea is the hot water pipe which carries the heat from the tropics which keeps warm great britain and ireland As we crossed this the bishop recalled the story of the angry yankee captain who when denouncing noun cing england for its sympathy and alato aid to the south during our civil war said you english had better look out for after president lincoln has settled this trouble we will send the army south mouth and cut a channel for the sulf gulf stream through the isthmus of panama and thus freeze your two little islands islando into an iceberg As we crossed the grew perceptibly warmer and as we sailed called on its outer edge down toward the caribbean sea we soon came into summer flummer heat the first land we saw was waa the island of san salvador where teo Voi lumbus umbus landed after his thirty five days voyage from spain in his little vessel which was just one thirtieth as large as ours he thought re he had discovered the eastern coast of asia and had no idea that that little island was the outpost of another hemisphere the morning following we saw a light house standing among a grove of palm trees and were told that we were looking at bird rock island one of the bahamas and then drifted on south until the bleak birak and rocky coast of western cuba came into view we skirted this keeping about four miles away from the shore so as to be out of the danger limits as provided by the spanish regulations of war we saw no sign of 0 fortifications or fighting our wat land was on the east of us it im was waa the mountains of haiti which we kept in sight eight for hours and then lost them to see but the blue hers of the caribbean until at 4 n in seven days out from new york we got get our first glimpse of the isthmus of panama that wonderful little strip of earth arth and rocks which ties together the two great continents of north and south america at first it was only a this thin hazy line of blue in the western horizon then the blue deepened we saw low hills bills rising one above another and a n nd d little islands coming up out of ef the fhe w water ater along the shore A little later we were in sight might of the low houses and the great wharves of colon with great palm trees which line the beach at the right shaking their giant fanlike fan like leaves and apparently waving a welcome to us as we came to anchor colon is intended to be the eastern end of 0 the panama canal I 1 will treat fully of this work in another letter after I 1 have gone over the route and have seen the work which is now being done on the central and western end of the isthmus here at colon you see only the extravagance of the first board of engineers who almost ruined a large part of the peasantry of france the town of colon which now has about people was built largely by the french and its beautiful cottages are now rusty and rotten architecturally speaking this is as ragged a place as you can find on this hemisphere everything is going to seed there is a market house here made of iron which would be large enough for washington city but there were not more than fifty people in it when I 1 visited it the middle of this morning and the rain came down in streams tram from the holes in its roof of corrugated iron the panama railroad seems to own the town its tracks run through the main street and outside of them at the east of the city it is almost impossible to go to any place without traveling over the rusting and rotting debris of cars dredges and other machines which were brought here at a cost of millions and found to be worthless or were soon allowed to become so there Is a part of the town known as the french quarter this is on a neck of land which was built out to form a breakwater at the eastern mouth of the canal the most expensive houses were erected here the wood being brought from the united states ferdinand de lesseps had one of the houses which cost it is said about and his son another almost equally expensive soon after I 1 landed I 1 hired a carriage of a highway robber in the shape of a jamaica coachman and drove out to see these houses they have never been occupied but for very short periods and they axe are now dilapidated the road to them is through a beautiful grove of palms pa ams and the settlement itself 1 is about as near paradise in its beautiful preen green as any place upon this earth the sea washes it on either side and a cool breeze almost always blows the people here are one of the queer mixtures that you sometimes find on the outposts of civilization where for some reason or other money is to be made the wharf at which we landed made me think of the docks of new orleans nine tenths of the people on it were mulattoes or negroes and most of them spoke english with a cockney accent the other tenth were spaniards who looked like creoles cheoles Cr eoles the negroes were from the english island of jamaica they have come here to work on the canal and seem to be about the only people who can stand the miasmatic climate I 1 found a lot of such people at a market stand on the beach and photographed one of them as she was coming toward me with a bunch of bananas on her head then there are a lot of chinese here they run all sos of stores act as money changers and do I 1 am told the largest part of the mercantile business of the isthmus among the chief business of the isthmus axe are those which have b 8 ve to do with the cemeteries and hospitals I 1 have been told here again and again that I 1 ought to visit the hospitals wid and the great cemetery on monkey hill panama has fine hospitals and cemeteries and all along the line of the railroad |
